To Love Another
by ABirdWhoSquawks
Summary: Pearl had been wanting to talk to Garnet for months. Nobody involved was prepared for what would come next. (Contains honest discussions on polyamory and related subjects.)


**[A/N: The following deals with honest discussions about polyamory. It's a subject I've wanted to write about for some time, and though this was one of my hardest fics to write (despite its length), I hope it does it justice.**

 **A thousand thanks to PaintedPetrichor for beta reading this; she was a tremendous help. Go read her fics right now, they're super great!]**

* * *

Pearl was having second thoughts.

She had spent months just building up the confidence to have this conversation, and as she paced back and forth across the living room, her doubts began to resurface.

 _"_ So what's a few more?" she said to herself. "No, I have to say something. Oh, but do I really need to say it _today?_ "

This fickle train of thought continued, the stress it placed on her only worsened by the waiting. She had almost given up and left before the sound of the warp pad stopped her.

"Oh, Garnet!" Pearl said, trying to keep her tone regular. "There you are."

Garnet simply looked back at her in response.

 _Well, it's now or never,_ Pearl thought. Though never was a fairly tempting possibility, she continued. "Do you have a moment? Could we talk?" She half-hoped the answer would be "no".

"Sure." Garnet shrugged.

Pearl was not particularly happy to hear the reply, but she was in too deep not to keep going. "Well—you see—I, um, it's come to my attention that..." She stammered, tripping over her own words. Garnet's lack of reaction did not help matters.

Pearl cleared her throat. "Over the past few months—well, for a while, actually—I've come to realize some things, with regards to my emotional state, that have been..." She sighed. _This isn't working._ She took a deep breath. "Garnet, I'm in love with you."

At first, Garnet didn't move a muscle, which did little to calm Pearl's already frayed nerves before she noticed a very small, almost imperceptible movement in Garnet's face. A tic, a twitch—it didn't last more than a second, but it didn't go unnoticed.

"Garnet?" Pearl asked hesitantly.

This time, the disruption in Garnet was more obvious; her face began to shake and change shape, trembling as if under a tension so great it would tear her apart. She grimaced as she tried to fight the disturbance, and as quickly as it had come, it subsided.

"Garnet!" Pearl said once she had recovered from the shock. "Are you alright?"

"We're fine," Garnet said through clenched teeth, her voice strained. "I—" She stepped back. "Excuse us." With that, she made for the temple door.

Pearl only watched helplessly as the door shut. "Us?"

* * *

Ruby and Sapphire barely made it into the temple before they defused.

As Garnet's last efforts to keep her halves together gave way, the tension sent the two gems flying in opposite directions into the walls of their room. They sat in silence trying to catch their breath.

Sapphire was the first to speak. "Ruby, I—"

"You _what?_ " she shot back. "What _was_ that?"

"Ruby, please." Sapphire stood. "Try to calm down."

Ruby ignored her. "I don't get it! What happened? Sure, I never would've expected her to pull something like that, but why'd we defuse?"

Sapphire tried to intervene. "Ruby, it's—"

"Was it just too shocking for us to keep it together?" Ruby's voice was rising.

"No, that's not—"

"Then _why?"_

"I love her back!"

The words rung with an intensity that shocked both gems.

The energy that Ruby had had suddenly left, leaving only confusion and distress. "I... what?" she managed to say, her voice much smaller than it had been.

"I love her." Sapphire's voice was soft, but firm.

"Sapphire, you—you can't be serious." Ruby shook her head. "I know we love her, but as a teammate, as a friend! Not—not like _that!"_

"I _am_ serious."

"What about me? What about _us?"_ Ruby did nothing to stop the tears welling up in her eyes.

"Oh, Ruby." Sapphire reached out her hand and wiped the tears from her lover's face. "I love you more than anything. Nothing could ever change that."

Ruby sniffed. "So what about you and her?"

Sapphire frowned and thought for a moment. "You can't help who you fall in love with," she began, "and I'm not going to hide anything from you. I do love Pearl, but that doesn't change anything with us. Love doesn't lessen just because you have more people _to_ love." She placed a gloved hand on Ruby's shoulder. "Look, relationships take all of the love, honesty, and trust from everybody involved. We know that better than anybody. I won't do anything if you're not okay with it, but I need you to be honest with me."

Avoiding eye contact, Ruby did not answer immediately. After a while, she looked back to Sapphire. "I'm...not sure I can handle something like that. Not without being jealous, not yet."

Sapphire smiled gently. "That's alright. No matter what, we can always talk. We can figure this out, I'm sure."

They both made the move at the same time and ended up in a tight embrace. After several seconds, however, they let go of each other, still two individual gems.

"So... What do we do now?" Ruby asked.

"Well, we should probably make sure Pearl's okay."

"Oh! Right."


End file.
